News Releases

What's New in Tucson
May 2009

Tucson Arts & Culture Now at ShowUp.com. Maintaining and growing audiences is a perennial problem for arts and cultural organizations. One solution for many groups in Southern Arizona is ShowUp.com, a comprehensive, online calendar of events and ticket service that showcases arts and cultural happenings. Metro Tucson is the latest region to join the service, which offers details about performances, exhibitions and festivals happening throughout Tucson and Southern Arizona. Consumers can buy regular and reduced-price tickets, learn about special offers, send an item to someone else and post an event review. ShowUp.com lists information about what's showing up on stages and at cultural destinations so all one has to do is show up! For more information, visit http://tucson.showup.com/.

Candlelight Tours at Colossal Cave. Escape the summer heat with candlelight tour of Colossal Cave Mountain Park where the temperature is always a cool 70°F. On the monthly candlelight tours, visitors aged 10 and older see the wonders of the cave in a new light. Each visitor carries his or her own candle for the 60-minute guided tour. Tour guides describe how the cave, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, had been used for centuries by prehistoric peoples when it was "discovered" in 1879. Since then it has been an object of interest for all kinds of people, ranging from train robbers to a president of the University of Arizona. A buffet dinner under the outdoor ramada follows the tour. Reservations are required (520-647-7275). For more details, visit www.colossalcave.com/.

DeGrazia Centennial Weekend. In Tucson's cosmopolitan Santa Catalina Mountain foothills is a 10-acre historic district bordered by a rustic, wooden fence, creosote bush and prickly pear. This modest, natural setting is home to a Tucson treasure: DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun-a gallery and chapel built from adobe brick by acclaimed Tucson artist Ettore "Ted" DeGrazia (1909-1982). Tucson celebrates the 100th anniversary of the artist's birth during DeGrazia Centennial Weekend, June 12-14. Events include the opening reception for "DeGrazia: A Modernist Perspective" at Tucson Museum of Art, June 12; a festival with live music by the artist's son, and the retrospective "DeGrazia: 100 Years, 100 Works" at DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun, June 13; a 100th birthday party, June 14. Out-of-towners can enjoy the festivities by staying at a nearby hotel such as Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, which is offering a special room rate of $99, based on availability, to those mentioning DeGrazia Centennial Weekend (call 1-800-234-5117). For more information, visit http://www.degrazia.org/.

Running Wild at the Desert Museum. There is a new live-animal presentation at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson. Staged indoors at the Warden Oasis Theater, "Running Wild" combines live-animal demonstrations with projected photographs, educational text, music and narration. Designed to appeal to young visitors, the experience includes trivia questions about desert organisms, animals onstage, a multimedia approach, the opportunity to touch a live snake and a 20-minute format. The educational focus is animal coverings: fur, feathers and scales. Visitors learn why skunks are covered with black-and-white fur, why even flightless birds have feathers and why snakes are covered by thousands of scales. For more information, visit http://www.desertmuseum.org/.

Cell Phone Tours at Tohono Chul Park. Tohono Chul Park, a 37-acre Sonoran Desert preserve on Tucson's north side, now offers cell phone tours to anyone with a cell phone. Tohono Chul Park is the only botanical garden in Arizona to feature this innovative approach to self-guided tours. Visitors can choose from 35 different recorded prompts that provide unique access to staff commentary on current exhibits, history of the park, geology of the adjacent Santa Catalina Mountains and the legend of the park's night-blooming cereus cactus. Visitors also can access various links on the park's website to hear recorded information. Travel + Leisure magazine has listed Tohono Chul Park as one of the Ten Great Botanical Gardens in the world. For more information, visit http://www.tohonochulpark.org/.

Live the West in Tucson. American Cowboy, America's favorite Western lifestyle magazine, recently published its list of top places to cowboy-up and enjoy the ride. Tucson, home to the Tucson Rodeo and Parade since 1925, is included in the magazine's list of "2009 Top 20 Places to Live the West." Tucson's Old West heritage lives on in neighboring towns like Tombstone (the site of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral), Benson and Bisbee, and through classic Western movies shot at Old Tucson Studios. Visitors can experience the Western lifestyle on a backcountry horseback ride and at places like the Arizona Folklore Preserve and Trail Dust Town-to name just a few. Each of the top 20 places selected  "embodies the magic and spirit that is the great American West." For more information, visit www.americancowboy.com/.

Tombstone's Old West Heritage Honored. Tombstone, "the town too tough to die," has been named a 2009 Preserve America Community. Located about 70 miles southeast of Tucson, the former mining camp is a National Historic Landmark and America's best example of 1880s Western heritage. Tombstone is famous internationally for one of the most notorious gunfights in history, at the O.K. Corral, as well as for the legendary honky-tonk Bird Cage Theater, the Oriental Saloons and The Tombstone Epitaph-the longest-running newspaper in the West. The Preserve America initiative encourages and supports community efforts to preserve and enjoy America's priceless cultural and natural heritage. Details on this initiative are at www.preserveamerica.gov. For more information about things to do and see while visiting Tombstone, visit www.tombstonechamber.com/.

Summer Movies Begin at Cinema La Placita. Since April 2000 Cinema La Placita has been showing classic films, outdoors in the lovely plaza setting of La Placita Village in downtown Tucson. The films are shown every Thursday at 7:30 p.m., May through October. Admission is free, although a $3 per person donation is suggested and contributes directly to the series' programming. Movie fans of all ages attend, pulling up a chair or spreading a blanket to catch an evening breeze and watch a typically family-friendly movie under Tucson's starry, summertime sky. A recent lineup included Adam's Rib, with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, and Cool Hand Luke, starring Paul Newman. For the current schedule and other details, visit http://www.cinemalaplacita.com/.

Discover GOLD at Westward Look Resort. The all-new GOLD restaurant (formerly The Gold Room) offers a contemporary culinary adventure at Tucson's historical Westward Look Resort. A completely new menu created by the resort's Executive Chef James Wallace blends fresh and innovative American cuisine with a touch of desert-inspired flavors. Features include Lobster and Toasted Corn Risotto Cake with Jicama Slaw and Smoked Chile Remolade, and Pine nut-Crusted Free-Range Breast of Chicken. The Mobil Four-Star restaurant's interior dazzles with new colors, fabrics, and artwork. Metallic accents like gold, shiny copper and smooth pewter provide modern elegance, while a wall of windows offers panoramic mountain and city views. For more information, visit www.westwardlook.com/.

# # #